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N.Korea restores UN monitoring of atom bomb complex
North Korea on Monday restored access for UN monitors to its atom bomb complex following a deal with Washington to salvage a denuclearization process endangered by disputes over verification, diplomats said.
- Agencies
- Published: 16:14 October 13, 2008
Vienna: North Korea on Monday restored access for UN monitors to its atom bomb complex following a deal with Washington to salvage a denuclearization process endangered by disputes over verification, diplomats said.
"The (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors can access all facilities at Yongbyon again, including the reprocessing plant," said one diplomat, referring to the site that made plutonium fuel for Pyongyang's atomic bomb programme.
The diplomats were familiar with IAEA operations but were not allowed to discuss such confidential information publicly.
North Korea had barred the inspectors from Yongbyon last Thursday in anger over Washington's refusal to remove it from a sponsors-of-terrorism blacklist in a dispute over the extent of verification measures required for denuclearization.
The US State Department announced on Saturday that it had delisted the Stalinist state after Pyongyang agreed to a series of verification steps. On Sunday, North Korea said it would resume disablement work and re-admit IAEA monitors.
Meanwhile, South Korea said on Monday it had seen no signs of the North restarting work to take apart Yongbyon, a Soviet vintage complex including a fuel fabrication facility and a 5-megawatt reactor.
Under a February 2007 disarmament deal with five powers, North Korea was to have been removed from the U.S. blacklist once it provided a full accounting of its nuclear programmes and accepted a system to check its claims.
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